Project Jones - Birthday Boy
by MozaWesterburg
Summary: Robot Jones turns 15 years old, and a big surprise is in store for him...
1. Surprise

"So, you got any plans for tonight?"

"Not yet," Robot replied, his feet kicking back and forth as he sat on the servicing table. Ever since he was activated, he had always behaved rather antsy during his yearly maintenance sessions. Darvick almost had to smile, noticing the little things his biggest project did to prove he was very much alive, and very much like a real kid. Fifteen years later, the middle-aged project manager was never any less proud. "I was hoping Socks would have called this morning before I left, but I suppose I'll have to call him when I return home."

The human stood behind Robot, fingers typing away at the yellow keypad revealed by his open back-plate. Robot leaned forward ever-so-slightly, not at all bothered by the incessant tapping against his back. "Same as last year, then?" Darvick asked. "Stay at home with Mom and Dad?"

The automaton shook his head. "Not exactly. We've never celebrated my activation day before. I've attended my friend's birthday parties, but Mom and Dad never put together a party for me. . . But this year, Socks promised to take me to a rock and roll show."

Darvick paused, taking his fingers off of Robot's back momentarily as his smile faltered.

"No kidding? Uh. . . Is Pink Floyd still touring? Think I could tag along?"

Robot made a sarcastic laugh. _"Ha-ha._ You know I like metal, Darvick. We're going to see Megadeth in New York tomorrow. It'll be my first real concert."

"Wow, kiddo," the human said while still frowning, though Robot couldn't see it with his back turned. "That's a. . . pretty important passage for you."

Robot's feet kicked faster. "I know! I'm excited."

Darvick straightened his back and put his hands on his hips, looking down at his almost-son in a fatherly way. He abruptly cleared his throat. "Just remember: No drinking, no drugs, and if a six-foot-five girl with an Adam's apple and a flat chest walks up to you and asks if you want a good time, run away as fast as you can."

Robot snickered. "You know I can't even do any of that stuff." His smile suddenly dropped. "Although. . . your last part confuses me a little."

Darvick smiled warmly and shook his head, going back to typing on Robot's back. "Not important. Uh, just stay out of trouble, okay?"

"Right," Robot replied, rolling his eyes a little. A few moments passed, when he decided it would be polite to ask Darvick how things were doing himself, even if he wasn't actually interested. "How are things at the factory?"

"Year after year, same stuff," Darvick sighed, as if he was glad to change the subject from the topic he himself had started. "Managers push for more ambitious projects, overseers-the money-argue that it's too risky. How is science ever going to move forward if the investors of major corporations are too afraid to use their profits for new ideas?" Finished with his work, he closed the door on Robot's back with a 'click', paused again, and waited until Robot turned around and looked at him in the eye. "I'm just lucky I got to work on you, buddy."

Robot smiled, but the longer he looked at Darvick, the older the man seemed to appear, with dark bags under his veiny, tired eyes, and small graying hairs at the root of his scalp.

"Are you feeling alright?" Robot asked, smile dropping like a sack of bricks. "You look exhausted."

"Oh, I'm fine." Darvick wiped his brow with the back of his hand, pushing his long bangs aside as he did so. Though he did have to cut his hair a certain length for the job, Jonathan Darvick would sooner chew on a bag of rocks than cut the hippie bangs his own father despised. That said, it was strange to see Darvick sweating so profusely in a well air-conditioned factory during a rainy morning in the middle of April. "Just gettin' old."

The Darvick Robot remembered was bright and excitable, with a kind disposition that was hard to break-even when Robot misbehaved, as children do. But as the years ticked by, Robot had begun to notice age creeping up on his once young, ambitious project manager-the one human in the entire world Robot thought of as close enough to be family, and one of the few people in the world he could converse with freely. And right now, the Darvick Robot was looking at was far less familiar than the one so preciously etched into his memory.

"Are we done?" Robot asked, and feeling bad immediately after. He'd looked forward to seeing Darvick all week-his birthdays always meant a trip to the factory to speak with his now very busy project director. But now, he just felt uncomfortable. Like his visit was just another appointment in a date book, and he had overstayed his welcome. "I probably should be heading back home soon. . ."

"Just gotta print up the results and take a look at 'em," Darvick explained, hitting a few keys on the machine to the left of Robot's bench. A few beeping noises later, and the printer on the other side of the room began screeching and spilling out a white pile onto the floor.

Darvick crossed the room to pick up the pile while Robot hopped down from the table. "I don't see the point in this, anyway. I am operating exactly as I was last year, and the year before that."

"And we want you to _keep_ operating the same for a long time," the human lectured, ripping the paper off of the printer's serrated cutter and holding a section right out in front of him. "Be grateful, Robot. I'm not going to be around forever to do these checks for you."

Robot was already heading towards the door when he heard this, and his feet came to a slamming halt. "What do you mean?" he asked, turning around.

Darvick looked up from the paper, giving Robot a surprised look, before quickly brushing it off and smiling. "Oh. . . nothing. . . Nothing you have to worry about. Just go. Have fun."

Robot obeyed, but the last time he looked at Darvick, he thought there was something off about his face in a way he couldn't describe. Like the man's smile wasn't entirely genuine. In fact, his smile didn't look right at all. Too toothy, with canines that shined under the harsh industrial lights above.

The automaton turned and hit the button on the wall, closing the automatic door to the general robotics servicing room (number 16, according to the label on the side), and turned back around to go meet his father, who was down in the front lobby. If Robot went down there now, they could both hurry home in the utility van together, so he could call Socks and perhaps plan a pre-concert sleepover.

But it seemed like he wasn't going to meet his father anytime soon. Even though, when he'd stepped out of the door, there were people pushing past each other in the halls, and every single light was glaring brightly, it only took one blink before turning from the door for reality to falter. Everything was deathly quiet. Not a mouse peeped in the dark, endless hall he looked down. The only thing keeping the dark-enough halls from being pitch black were the security lights above, spaced in-between each other by several feet.

Robot froze, stared down both ways of the hall for a few moments, and immediately turned back around, facing the room he just came out of, eyes the size of dinner plates. It was like that door was a time machine, and stepping through it fast-forwarded the day into late night. Without a doubt, something was wrong. Very, _very_ wrong.

Not sure what else to do, Robot slammed the button on the wall panel to Service Room 16, watching the door fly back up. "Mr. Darvick?"

But to his horror, nobody was in there. Jonathan Darvick, whose uneasy gaze Robot could picture in perfect clarity in his head from just a minute ago, had vanished. And worse yet, there was no sign Robot himself had ever been there. The pile of printer paper that described in technical detail his system's operation was gone too, and the printer's light was off.

It was then that a childlike panic hit Robot like a train, not unlike how a toddler would feel after losing their mother in a crowded department store. All alone, and with his godfather no longer around to call on for help, the newly-turned fifteen-year-old boy felt the sudden urge to find the next living being he could, and latch onto them. Out of the room, he fled, open door behind him. Down the hallways, aided by his own night vision where the security lights had their blindspots, Robot turned corner after corner-rows and rows of near-identical rooms in the servicing wing of the facility. His eyes scanned for the most remote sign of movement, left and right. But every corner he turned, every place came up alone. Silent.

As he bolted down the creepy halls that used to terrify the nights of his early youth, he could've sworn that he saw a little, white, ghostly toddler Robot-eyes and bulb lit with fear-sprinting up and past him.

A giant, active robotics plant, on a Saturday at 11:00 AM. Totally empty. _Everybody's outside. They have to be. There's no way. . ._

Using his mental map of the place, Robot set his trajectory for the front doors of the plant, and went for it, like an arrow aimed at a target. Reaching the front lobby, he noticed the windows, which had let in what little natural light there was earlier during the storm, were now pitch black. Robot was still relying on his night vision all the way until his claws pressed against the double doors.

Swinging them open, Robot flung himself outside, like he relied on oxygen and the factory had been vacuum sealed.

To behold. . . that he was standing right outside of Service Room 16 again.

But he had no time to stew on this horror. The world's silence was broken as it thundered under his feet, and a terrifying roar rippled through the air. Robot teetered back and forth, ready to scream. An earthquake was ripping through reality as he knew it, floor and earth and brilliant, hot, molten lava beneath it, miles and miles down. Machines that had been piled out in the hallway of the maintenance rooms were falling into the abyss around him, followed by tiles and papers, wrenches and drills, broken robot arms and metal plates and everything in sight. JNZ Robotics bent like a dollhouse in a giant's fists, the bottom ripping away as the ceiling caved in on itself. Industrial lights and the long, white tubes inside that hadn't even been on lit up and exploded above Robot's head, sending shards dusting his light bulb like snow. Robot grabbed the only thing he could in sight-the frame of the still-open door to Service Room 16-as the room rose in the air above his head, nearly lined up with where the former ceiling had been. He dangled from the door handle like a trinket on an infant's mobile, too stunned by fear to plan an escape-as if there was one. The longer he held on, the longer his arm joints expanded.

Just as it seemed like the door was going to be crushed into the already crushed ceiling, the earthquake's rumble quieted a little. Debris continued to fall on Robot's head and back as he was hypnotized by the metal-melting liquid below as it seemed to be so close now, his powerful eyes scorched white. And only when he got himself to look away did he realize that his arm hadn't been the only thing to expand. The lava hadn't gotten closer to Robot-he had gotten closer to it. The body that dangled below Robot's head hung like the heavy part of a wad of bubblegum, stuck to the bottom of a desk at school, while his torso stretched for what must have been miles and miles below. And it was only getting closer to the lava.

By the time Robot looked back up at the hand that was clutching the door handle, it, too, was miles away, so far that he could barely see it. He didn't know what was more horrifying: The perilous fate of the bright red and yellow cascades below, or the state of himself as he sat, waiting for something to cause the gap between himself and the lava to abruptly close.

He wasn't sure what it was. Maybe a sudden surge of loneliness in this empty world, maybe the doom of himself and everybody around him, but he decided, on a whim, that there was really no reason to prolong closing that gap.

His life flashed before his eyes, preparing for the tumbling terror of his rubber body in freefall to the earth's core, and then he let go.

He kept his gaze upwards the whole way down. The further he fell, the more time crawled, and the heavier his eyelids felt. The door above him grew smaller and smaller, and when it was just barely recognizable as a square from the distance he was falling, he thought he saw it open, and a black figure appear on the other side, waiting for him.

X

His eyelids felt like they had been welded shut. They were so heavy, Robot almost felt like he'd rather just let himself sleep through the next day instead of making use of his claws to pry them open, like doors on a bus. As any teen would, if it was a regular Saturday morning, Robot would probably do just that-let himself get more sleep instead of forcing himself up and awake. But as all his systems began to activate one by one, including his internal calendar, he remembered what day it was, and why he needed to get up. April 16th. The fifteenth anniversary of the day he was first activated.

But-wait-_that_ was yesterday. Today was April the _17th._

But that couldn't _possibly_ be correct.

Recent memories seeped back to him like floodwater under a basement door, details coming clearer with every second that passed. Robot remembered waking up like normal on Saturday, listening to Mom nag at him to finish his chores, and driving to the factory with his father to get his yearly overall exam by his project manager, Darvick. He hopped up on the maintenance table, and passed the tedious examination time by catching up with his godfather, discussing things like the concert his best friend was going to take him to. Beyond that point, he couldn't remember anything but what had to have been the dream. Meaning he'd been put into sleep-mode-and a very deep one at that. But why? Why would they do that?

Robot finally pried his eyes open, but he could hardly see a thing around him. He could only guess he was still in the servicing room. He was laid on a flat surface-probably the same table he was sitting on just hours and hours ago. The darkness and silence, and loneliness, eerily reminded him of the dream-at least, what brief flashes of the dream he could remember since he'd woken up. He stared at the pitch black ceiling for a few seconds, and the same question began to go on a loop in his head: _Why did they put me to sleep? Why?_ It was starting to irritate him. And now he'd have to wait to ask, because neither his parents nor Darvick were even here right now. Nobody at all, except for a few late or early workers. They really thought it was just fine to leave him here? Leave him alone, with no one but some strangers he definitely wasn't going to be comfortable approaching?

Too frustrated to remember in that moment he had night vision, he felt around to the edges of the table in preparation for pushing himself upwards. Later on, he'd recall a lot of small details that were off that he didn't notice in his groggy and irritated state at the time. Like how odd it should have been for his arms to reach the corners of the wide table so easily. Or how little his head seemed to weigh compared to the rest of his body.

But the thing that broke the illusion, that rattled him so hard, was the sudden and shocking feeling of his feet hitting the floor _before_ he hopped off of the table. He sat there, feet firmly on the ground, his computer mind whirling, trying to explain this error. When he'd arrived to Service Room 16 the previous day, his feet definitely dangled off of that table-they always did. He distinctly remembered kicking his feet to and fro that same day as he spoke with Darvick, out of both habit and tradition.

Either this was a lower table he was laying on, or. . .

Robot turned his head to the left, and finally snapped on his night vision. Right away, he could tell he was still in the same servicing room-the cabinets, tools, and machines were all still where they were yesterday when he was here with Darvick.

But his eyes fell on the shining object leaning against the wall, behind where his head had laid, across the room, over six feet tall and two feet wide. It didn't take long to identify the object as a full length mirror, to which he flew to with the speed of a phantom.

The first thing he saw was his face, from which the same brilliant yellow orbs looked back at. But it didn't take him long to realize the high placement of his face in the mirror and its significance. As his legs felt noticeably heavier with each step, he cautiously backed away from the entire wall.

And nearly collapsed.

All it took was his good distance away from the mirror, when his eyes peered slightly downward, for him to feel suddenly very, very weak. He stumbled backwards, towards the table, catching himself just in time, staring into his own horrified eyes.

His body had been changed. Modified. While still very similar and still very much his own, the short, boxy torso he once stood comfortably in was now three times longer, with shoulders twice as broad. His shock only worsened as he turned from the mirror to stare down at himself with his own eyes. Familiar head to familiar toe, he looked over himself in an overwhelming combination of fascination and terror at everything in-between-everything that surely did not-_could not_-belong to him.

And as he slid down onto the floor, against the table, head spinning, limbs quaking, his thoughts eventually closed in on one very clear set of words that held him in place for what would, for him, feel like hours.

_They did it._

* * *

Part 1 of a Multi-Chapter Collab with Wit. (Check the deviantart page for full information)

**Robot Jones turns 15 years old, and a big surprise is in store for him...**

Oh boy this is gonna be fun.

Comments/Critique/Any feedback would be awesome sauce.

_Whatever Happened to Robot Jones? _© Greg Miller & Cartoon Network


	2. The Gift Horse's Mouth

Seven in the morning, Jonathan Darvick stepped into the factory extra early, with a sense of dread following him. Whatever Robot was feeling like, it couldn't be good. The man could only hope that he was still asleep in the servicing room, so he could arrive in time to explain why they'd done this when they did.

Still waiting for his coffee buzz to kick in, Darvick, eyes half closed, clasped a heavy binder in one hand, and felt around the wall with his other hand by memory until he found the button panel on Service Room 16. His index finger at last fell over the correct button to open the door.

The soundproof metal barrier flew up quickly and without ceremony, and Darvick was assaulted with the sound of a very loud, very angry sounding toddler. It didn't take him long to realize the voice, as well as the stern fatherly voice that replied to the bodiless boy's voice (and the canned laugh track that followed), were coming from the television set-hooked up to the wall in the top right corner of the room, with the volume set to full blast by the room's brooding occupant.

He was sitting straight up on the table now, surrounded by the darkness of the room, wheeled carts loaded with tools, and a monitor that had previously been taking note of his systems while he slept. Besides himself, the table he sat on was also currently being occupied by a leaning pile of comic books that looked very much on the verge of tipping over. His unblinking eyes were fixed upward, locked on the television with the precision that could take down a fly from fifty miles away with his lasers-not that they shot out that far, anyway-but he didn't look the least bit amused by it. In fact, Darvick wasn't sure if Robot was even _listening_ to the TV, even at full blast.

As if he couldn't look any more disgusted, Robot's long legs were pulled in close to his body, as if the pristine table surface around his perimeter was covered in slop and slime. Perhaps, the human thought guiltily, he was trying to remember what it felt like just hours ago, when he was smaller.

Darvick put his open hand in front of his mouth and made a show of clearing his throat-actually bringing about a real coughing spasm. When he regained control of himself, he brushed aside his long, uncropped bangs and gave the un-acknowledging Robot an authoritative look. "Well, good morning to you, too."

Not only did the automaton not reply, but Darvick wasn't even sure Robot could _hear_ him-Darvick hadn't even heard himself. He glared at the TV and then narrowed his eyes at Robot. "Could you just. . . turn that down for _five minutes?"_ he asked, this time making his voice louder.

This time, Robot _had_ to have heard him. Even if he turned his hearing down. But the only sign that indicated this was Robot's arm almost slipping off his knee as he rested his arms on them. But the otherwise stoic automaton just fixed his posture and kept his pupils from even flinching in the human's direction. The remote for the TV, conveniently sitting at Robot's feet, remained untouched.

Still tired from lack of sleep and an unforgiving work schedule, Darvick quickly lost his patience, and flicked on the room's glaring industrial lights. He went to the TV, reached up, and adjusted the volume dial with his hand. With the TV at an acceptable level, Darvick felt the tension fall like a wall between them. He wasn't used to Robot's complete silence. When the automaton was younger, if he was upset, he'd sooner throw a tantrum than sit there, eerily quiet. But the things baby Robot would get mad at Darvick about were things that any child would throw a fit over, not knowing it was for their own benefit-like going to bed at 8:30.

This time around, Darvick realized, Robot had a _very good reason_ to be mad. As he lowered his hand from the television set, only then did he notice that the body length mirror he'd set up for Robot to look at himself in when he woke that morning, had been carefully turned backwards. He was afraid to turn it around and find out if it was even still in once piece, but considering there were no shards on the floor, it was safe enough to suppose that it was.

Why was that terrifying?

"Look. . ." Darvick started, looking for a chair to sit in. He found a stool hidden beneath a pile of mechanical textbooks up against the counter, moved them to the floor, and took a seat. It was hard to get comfortable when a six-and-a-half-foot automaton was glaring nearly right into your eyes. For the first time in his life, Darvick was pretty intimidated by the robot he once referred to as 'little'. "I understand why you're mad. You may not think I do, but I _do._ This thing. . . you. . . This is a big change, much bigger than the last one, and it-it's never been done on a robot before. You're the first, and it's scary. But it's not that bad." Darvick sighed. "It's a part of life. I mean, kid. . . you're a _man_ now, and-"

**"No I'm not."**

Darvick gaped, the binder nearly slipping from his loose fingers. He motioned to grab it just in time to pull it against his knees, but loose papers from the binder spilled out over the floor anyway. Darvick winced at his own clumsiness, and threw the binder up onto the countertop behind him, realizing that journaling the post-op details was just not important right now.

When he looked back up at Robot, the automaton's anger had been squeegee wiped off of his face, and his eyes were wide with terror. His right hand was clasped over his mouth so tightly, Darvick was worried if Robot would scratch himself with the corners of his claws. His pupils were small and flitting back and forth across the large expanse of his yellows like a mosquito in a jar. He looked as if he _had_ to speak, but a single word more would blow up the planet.

His voice had come out deeper. Much deeper. And not on purpose. He tightly shut his eyes, and his head started to spin like it had earlier that morning. It was one thing to alter his body out of nowhere like this, but to change his own _voice?_ He should have known they'd have done that, anyway, but it only seemed to set in stone the gravity of the situation. The reality of what had been done to him, and the meaning behind it. The resonance of his voice had only contradicted his argument and, in turn, supported Darvick's.

Time crawled, and when the automaton finally decided that speaking once more wouldn't shatter the planet as they knew it, he slowly unclasped his mouth and let out a hushed question he already knew the answer to. "My voice, too?"

It might not have been directed at Darvick-the man wasn't sure, anyway. But regardless, he nodded solemnly in Robot's direction. "Yes, Robot. That, too."

Robot's body slowly unlocked, his elongated legs gradually folding down as he sat Indian-style, his face melting into despair. "How. . . How could this happen. . . How could you do this to me?" He turned to Darvick then, looking him straight in the eyes. "To knock me unconscious and do this to my body? And. . . make me into-" he looked down at himself, "-some sort of freak?"

Darvick sighed again, pinching the bridge of his nose. "Robot, you're being overdramatic. You know _what_ this is about, you just don't want to say it. Listen, you've known your purpose involved growing up like a human child for a while now. It's just _time,_ that's all. Everybody goes through it. Even _me,_ and _I_ got over it!"

A flash of anger crossed Robot's eyes as he replied. "Oh, really? Did _you_ wake up a quarter past four in the morning, three times the size you were before you went to sleep? Did _you_ suddenly find yourself with a voice that-" he cut himself off, golden pupils wobbling as he played his own words back to himself, like a cruel recording, "-that you don't even recognize as your own?"

Darvick's gut started to twist with the guilt of the scenario. He could've cursed himself out for comparing himself to Robot. Of course, he'd gone through the evolution from boy to man. But it _wasn't the same._ Maybe Darvick would've planned for Robot's change to be as close to a human's growth as possible, just like some other aspects of the automaton's life that were supposed to resemble a real human boy's, but it wasn't going to happen that way. Not with the limits of technology at this point in time.

As Robot turned away from him, Darvick noticed again the stack of comics on the table. Either someone working in this factory _really_ liked DC and decided to take pity on the slumbering bot and the horror he was about to wake up to and gave him his stack, or those were in fact, Robot's. Meaning that his parents had been here.

_Meaning_ that Robot had gone the whole morning without speaking to either one of them. He probably blamed them just as much as he blamed Darvick, and the human felt his stomach turn because of it.

Though he knew this was coming sooner or later, Robot had no idea when this upgrade was due. Back when he was in middle school, his particularly tall friend Socks had been asked to join the rather exclusive basketball team. This observation made Robot begin thinking about growth spurts, and, wanting to fit in as best as he could, he began prodding Darvick about when he was going to be upgraded. However, for the longest time, Darvick wasn't sure himself, and he could only ever tell Robot he'd have it when the "time was right". And then the automaton continued to age-12, 13, 14. Until he was eventually one of the shortest kids (if not the shortest in general) in what was now high school. But now that he was busy with the things that came with this higher level of schooling, it seemed that he, surprisingly enough, didn't even care about it anymore. So maybe keeping it a surprise was a necessary evil, because at this point in his life, after being around other kids and establishing a normalcy of sorts among them, Robot probably didn't want to welcome any changes. Not at this point in time, anyway-not even when it was starting to become crucial to his growth.

But there was something undeniable, something that was changing, anyway: Robot himself. And so were his peers. But the difference between himself and his human counterparts was one simple, yet giant, thing: They were changing in more ways than one. He wasn't. Beyond his mind, his physical form couldn't, and didn't, have changes. His _mind_ had puberty-not his body. And Darvick could no longer stand the thought of Robot, who was now in high school, still standing at only four-and-a-half feet. Some Type Bs were made to be short, but Robot wasn't one of them. He was made to be raised like a regular child and have a regular child's experiences, including growth spurts.

In retrospect, Darvick realized he probably could have made this a lot easier on Robot, who'd only ever had 2 full upgrades like this in his life-this one included-and the first one wasn't so bad because not only did he not have the pressure of having to assimilate among human beings yet, but he was much younger, and the change was all expected, wanted, and not nearly as extreme. Maybe these upgrades should have been smaller and more frequent, but in the end, Robot was a prototype-an experiment-for potential future AI like himself. However many upgrades it took to make him grow alongside his peers in a smooth, successful way, worked. But _this way_. . . probably didn't. And now it was too late to go back and try again.

Speechless, Darvick stared at the awake and trembling automaton. _He_ did this to him. He caused this _child_ to undergo this horror. His parents went through with the labor of the operation, but Darvick had put in the order. He was in charge of this project, and he was responsible for the mental health of the teenager whose psychology was so important for his purpose. The half of a lemon poppyseed muffin he'd shoved down his throat while rushing out the door this morning was threatening to come back up.

"And on my _birthday,_ too," Robot said, softly and sadly, just like the kid he still was.

He wasn't an idiot. He knew the relationship between the date's relevance and what was actually done to him. Fifteen is a common age of major growth in teenage boys, if not the last year of growth spurts in general. As much as he didn't want to admit it, it was quite logical, to do this now. How stupid he felt for once thinking they were just never going to go through with it. He wasn't even halfway done with high school yet. _Of course_ they were going to do it sooner or later-_especially_ in high school.

Robot grabbed the remote next to his feet and shut off the television at last, causing the screen to iris-in around the fictional father and son embracing after their disagreement. For the first time since he woke up this morning, Robot pushed his feet off of the table and brought himself to a standing position. Afraid of what he was about to do in such a jarring motion, Darvick hopped to his feet, too. And it was then that both of them froze, noticing the same thing: Little Robot Jones was now taller than Jonathan Darvick. Not by much-if Robot's visual calculation was correct, he only cleared Darvick's head by three inches. But compared to the height he used to be, it still sent a shockwave through the air that pushed him back down onto the table, not tempted to move again until his parents came back to pick him up.

X

Raindrops sprinkled the surface of Robot's skin as he stepped out the front door of the factory. The sky was white, as if it couldn't decide if it wanted to put on another full-on storm, or just tease one all day. Either way, the weather was pathetic and fitting for Robot's cranky and tired mindset.

Darvick had suggested Robot "take it easy" for at least a week, because his battery had been modified to provide more energy for his larger body, and needed to adjust to doing so. To the rather glum teenager, this would have been perfectly fine if he didn't have to go back to school the very next day. Whatever reason it was that they didn't give him time off to get accustomed to all of this, he wasn't sure. Perhaps it was just the fact that he wasn't a human, and it wasn't a surgery he'd undergone, anyway. It was something else. It was just "a part of life", like Darvick had told him.

His parents calmly strolled to the utility van pre-parked right outside of the factory's main entrance, and his mother even opened the back door of the van for him as he approached, as if he was being discharged in a wheelchair.

He looked down at the battered, and now water-spotted, suitcase, being dragged by its wheels in his right hand. Knowing Robot had an affinity for wearing clothes that most other robots didn't, and that this unpleasant surprise meant that he was going to be far too big for all the clothes he had at home, Darvick had given him an assortment of lightly worn pants and tops of his own to take home and wear, until Robot could go out and buy more clothes of his own. Robot was polite enough to silently accept the offer and the suitcase, but he wasn't thrilled about it. If Robot had any legitimate taste for fashion, then poor Darvick didn't seem to realize that a lot of the clothes that he'd so generously handed down to his godson were outdated, and utterly dorky looking. Straight brown khakis with a fold at the knee, a black turtleneck sweater, a white button-up dress shirt. . . The suitcase would do a lot better in a time capsule of the 1960s conformist culture, rather than in the closet of a teenage metalhead. However, arguing about it would mean actually having to hear his own voice again, and in that moment, it just wasn't worth the trauma.

The automaton picked the suitcase up by the handle-surprised it didn't rip, it was a lot of weight on such battered fabric-and tossed it inside like a load of dirty laundry, far enough to smack against the backseat door on the other side. His mother had no comment regarding his roughness and hurried around to the passenger's side of the van, as Robot helped himself into the empty seat beside the case. He found himself pausing mid-motion, the step upwards into the van that he knew so well changed by his longer legs. It felt so smooth and quick and. . . utterly wrong.

The ride back home did nothing to ease the stress. As rain pittered down from the sky and smacked against the window, Robot watched the scenery of the inner city fly behind him, gradually growing less gray and more green as they left urbania behind. It was still light enough outside to see his pitiful reflection in the window beside him. He pushed himself as close to the window as he could, so that he couldn't see anything below his chin.

At some point during the drive, his father had put the radio on. As of late, Robot liked to turn on the radio during their family drives. He liked the control of such a device, especially as he grew fonder of music. Currently, the radio was playing the last station Robot had switched it to on the ride to the factory. AC/DC's "You Shook Me All Night Long" trickled to his hearing receptors in the backseat, despite the volume being low. Even though his father wasn't always good when it came to subtlety, Robot could tell that it was an effort to encourage him to start speaking again. And it wasn't just the fact that the specific song that was on was uncomfortably suggestive for thinking about in the company of his parents that kept him quiet. . .

They pulled up to the driveway with Robot's head still murky. The sky had darkened to a steely gray that complimented the giant metal cube of Acer Street, as Robot disembarked from the van, suitcase now being held tightly in his arms, as he hurried inside the house. His parents followed suit at a speed that indicated their concern, but by the time they got inside, Robot had zipped upstairs and disappeared, sending his bedroom door slamming shut. Darvick's suitcase sat on the outside of the door, toppled over on its side. Robot's mother edged forward, tempted to head upstairs and try to coerce him into speaking now that they were home, but if she knew anything about moments of privacy, this was one of them. So, in the end, she and her husband alike kept themselves a good distance away from their child's door.

In his room, with the lights off, Robot threw himself down onto his bed-the place where he felt safest in the world-only to make another gruesome discovery. The mattress Robot had used for almost 2 years, that was made for a kid between 5 and 12's bed frame-now too short for him.

His face plunged into the pillow fine, but his feet dangled a foot off of the edge. His eyes snapped open upon feeling that the lower part of his body was not supported by the bed, and all at once, an overwhelming sensation that he hadn't felt for a very, very long time took over his body. His vision became blurry, as if water had built up behind his eyes' lenses, and he couldn't hold back the shaking of his mouth and the eruption of a sob any longer. He muffled the noises coming out of his mouth with the pressure of the pillow, being extra careful to make sure his parents couldn't hear. But the effort to do so, and the shame of crying, only prolonged it.

When it was over, he curled up his legs, turned the pillow over, and pressed his overheated cheeks against the cool surface with a sigh, listening to the familiar hum of the electricity in the walls. He heard the distant sound of his parents moving about downstairs, but otherwise, there was silence, and his thoughts.

Tomorrow was Monday. By 8 AM, everybody at the high school was going to behold the new Robot Jones. And he was going to be a freak. All. Over. Again. Four years of effort to blend in with the humans, trying to be treated like just another kid in the hallway, ruined. What would they say? What would his _friends_ say?

That last thought made him want to stay in his room and rot for the rest of eternity.

* * *

Part 2 of the Multi-Chapter Collab with Wit!

**A planned overnight growth spurt from hell spurs an argument between fifteen year old Robot and his project manager, as he tries to come to terms with the expectation for him to grow up alongside his human counterparts without the transition time.**

The first chapter was more atmosphere building, and now we're onto the feels-y stuff. This is where the true conflict of the fic comes into play-Robot's sudden body upgrade. Gave us a chance to flesh out Darvick some more, show his conflict as someone who cares about Robot but also has a job to do, and that includes carrying out the project as planned. And Robot may have matured a little over the years, but he's not ready to suddenly be a man yet. And the unfairness of the situation tolls on him.

Comments/Critique/Any feedback would be awesome sauce.

_Whatever Happened to Robot Jones? _© Greg Miller & Cartoon Network


	3. Infiltration

Though he tried not to pay attention to the time, Robot was aware that he spent a good hour and a half on the bed, doing nothing except dozing off every few minutes. Eventually, cycling his own miserable thoughts became a bore, and he finally pushed himself off of the bed. He sat on the floor and opened up his video game cabinet, popping a cartridge of the shoot-'em-up, _Contra,_ into his NES. This was _not_ a day for the whimsical land of Mario.

He was halfway through the game, at such a point of immersion that he could forget that which made him cry earlier, when a knock on the metal door sent him flailing for the pause button, before a foe took his character's life.

"Robot? It's me, man."

_Socks!_ Robot dropped the controller and hugged his knees close to his chest again.

_The concert. . ._

"I called you earlier but you didn't pick up-your mom said you had an upgrade or something . . . ? Come on, we gotta pick up Mitch and Cubey so we can get on the road soon."

_She told him._ Robot thought with a grimace. It would be just like his mother to spill the beans to his friends before he was ready. But if Socks just referred to it as an upgrade. . . maybe he wouldn't think so much about it. Maybe the sight of Robot over six feet tall wouldn't send Socks reeling against the back wall after all.

"Uh," Robot started, testing out his voice-straining it to make it as high pitched as possible. "I'm sorry. Yes, I. . . have just come back from a pretty intense upgrade operation."

"Well, hurry up and get ready, man! We can talk about it in the car-besides, there's something I kinda need to talk to you about-Like, I need your advice."

_"My_ advice?" Robot asked, bewildered. In almost all of their history together, it had never been that Robot thought he could dispense advice to Socks. It had usually been the other way around. "Well, alright. . ."

Drawn by the promise of a close friend's understanding and a fun night, and now the self-assuring idea that he had acquired wisdom, Robot bid a farewell to his game's progress, and leapt from the NES. Like most other teenagers, he'd leave his console running for days, or even weeks, so he could just right-away jump back on whenever he wanted to-whether it overheated or not.

Suddenly remembering his clothing predicament, Robot cursed under his nonexistent breath, flipped on his bedroom light, and ran to his closet, looking for anything baggy enough to fit over him. He knew he owned one pretty oversized and bright tie-dye t-shirt, and while it was going to look ridiculous at a heavy metal show, he'd much rather wear that than one of Darvick's sweaters. He tossed aside tiny shirt after tiny shirt, making a mental note to start a box for charity tomorrow as well. "What's the problem?"

"So, you remember me and Stacey talking in study hall on Friday?"

"Well, yes," Robot said to Socks, loudly enough to be heard on the other side of the door. "But you're always chatting with her."

"That's the thing," Socks said, sort of sheepishly. "We're always just. . . talking, and it's really nice. Like, I never talked so much with a girl before."

"That's good," Robot said, half sarcastically, holding the now-found tie-dye shirt out in front of himself. He thought back to when Socks himself, as well as Mitch and Cubey, made fun of him for hanging out with Socks's crush, and her then-overbearing friend, Pam. Back in middle school, hanging out with even one girl was grounds to having you get called 'gay'. And even though he eventually avoided Pam after it became obvious she was just trying to use him to get a better grade in science class, Robot didn't regret the time he spent getting to know Stacey, and _especially_ Shannon, who was really his particular motivation for being around the girls to begin with.

In high school, it seemed as though boys and girls could hang out together on a more personal level and there was no mocking anyone for it, and Robot resented this. Especially now that said best friend who once called him 'gay' was now bragging about his friendship with Stacey. "What about it?"

"She asked me if I've ever been to Bob's Diner on Park Avenue before."

"Interesti-wait," Robot said, freezing stone-still with the shirt half-on, only one arm in the sleeve. "Are you implying that Stacey. . . asked you _out?"_

"I guess so," Socks said. "I don't know what I'm feeling, man. It's like, I thought I got over her. I thought we were just cool with each other since the whole Becca thing. But now, it looks like it could be getting serious."

"I'm happy for you, Socks," Robot told him, not untruthfully, pulling the shirt over his head at last. Although a part of him so desperately wanted to tease his best friend about being caught in a gender role-reversal, as far as Stacey asking _him_ out went. But as he slowly pulled the shirt down, a frown crossed his face. "But. . . you don't sound happy for yourself."

"That's the thing, Robot," Socks said, and Robot heard him stomp one of his sneakers onto the floor. "'The hell am I not happy?"

Robot paused for a moment to answer this in a way that would make Socks feel better, but something about the conversation was making him annoyed. Gaze lost in the dark of the closet, his thoughts turned bitter.

Socks and Stacey had only known each other for about as long as Robot had known Shannon, and despite their ups and downs, they had formed a connection that was to be admired, if not envied.

And here was Socks, telling him that he wasn't happy about it.

What _wasn't_ there to be happy about? Them being together sounded so natural and so correct to Robot. Of course, it wasn't hurt by the fact that Socks and Stacey both underwent the slow and, at times, humiliating process of puberty at the same time, so they had that to relate to, as all teens did. Even Shannon.

And then, there was he, Robot. Before today, he would've felt that he had, at this point, become one with the crowd rather well. But now, he felt on the edge of starting the grueling integration process all over again. And it made him hot and dizzy once more.

It wasn't fair.

All that work, all that time getting to know _her_. . . All that time for _her_ to learn to _trust_ him. . . It was then that Robot suddenly became very aware of the mirror stationed just in the corner of the room behind him. He'd only ever used it for minor bouts of self-servicing, like tightening a rare loose screw or something else, and otherwise paid it zero attention. But now, he felt as though he was being _forced_ to pay attention to it-he could almost feel it watching him. Judging him. And despite his best instincts telling him not to, he found himself slowly turning away from the closet and looking at it, and finding his own now timid gaze.

". . . You know what-nevermind, we'll just drop it. . . Are you bringing all this?"

Robot's head jerked upwards at the last comment. "Huh?"

"Your suitcase out here is _loaded,_ man!" Socks shouted.

On the other side of the door, the not-so-muscular basketball player picked up the case by its weathered handle with a grunt.

"I thought you were just gonna bring, like, a battery and an extra pair of jeans or something."

Robot quickly stepped out of the view of the mirror, and for a moment, hesitated to speak up. What happened? Just a minute ago, he was ready to open the door and let Socks see what had been done to him. But now, he couldn't even work up the courage to explain Darvick's hand-me-downs and why they were there. "Oh, that? That's not my travel case." He panicked, almost forgetting to try to make his voice sound higher pitched. "Um. . . Socks, I'm not sure if I'm ready to go."

"What?" Socks dropped the suitcase, narrowly avoiding hitting his toe. He wasn't physically hurt, but telling from his voice, he was definitely hurt in another way. "Why?"

Robot grimaced, hearing the pain in his best friend's voice. "It may appear that I, uh, require a longer recovery time after my upgrade. I'm. . . feeling quite exhausted."

"But two seconds ago you were ready to go!" Socks pressed a hand against the door, feeling the cool metal against his palm, realizing only then how long Robot had stalled opening the door. "What's _actually_ going on? The hell happened to you?"

"I just told you, I'm still tired!" Robot shouted, angry that his excuse was not being taken seriously. As soon as the words were out, though, Robot covered his hand with his mouth. The voice facade had broken.

But Socks seemed to be too upset to notice or care. "You know, it's pretty fucked to me that you'd just call it off all the sudden. Especially after all the work we put in on this trip. And you can't even tell me why you're actually doing it?!"

"It's not _my_ fault this happened!" Robot shouted back, not caring anymore how deep his voice sounded. "Do you think I asked for this? They just shoved it on me!" He gestured down to his body in disgust, despite the fact that Socks couldn't see. In his rage, he had half a mind to step outside and show Socks just what he meant.

"If you're mad at _them,_ why are you taking it out on _me?_ What did _I_ do?"

"You didn't do anything-I just don't need an excuse! I'm just tired, and mad, and sad, and I want to be alone, alright? Is that so much to ask for?"

There was silence, then. Robot heard what must've been the suitcase being leaned against the wall. "No. . . it isn't. Happy birthday, Robot."

At once, Robot's anger bubble popped, and he felt a sharp stab of regret as he heard the sound of the human's high tops walk away from his door, and downstairs. Every microscopic piece of him was screaming to burst out of the room and run after Socks. To explain everything. But a teeny, tiny little part of himself wouldn't let that happen.

By the time Robot realized it was too late, and Socks had probably drove off, he sank to the floor, and buried his head in his knees.

That was so wrong, what he did. Why did it come out like that? Socks might have never understood what Robot was going through, but he damn well cared. And that was all that mattered.

With Socks gone and no one else to go to, Robot slinked back into his bed, curled up, and slept the rest of the day away.

X

7:30 AM. Monday morning.

The big door to the bus Robot usually rode finally swung shut, after waiting for him to come out of the giant metal house for long enough. When he knew for sure that the rumble of the bus's engine was gone for good, he cautiously peeped out from behind his house (too worried that hiding in the bushes he was once small enough to hide in wouldn't suffice), stepped away from the metal plating of his home, and pulled the hood of one of Darvick's baggy and worn sweatshirts up. Combined with the biggest pair of pants in the suitcase, and a backpack he had never used before, Robot felt as close to unidentifiable as he ever hoped to get.

He sighed, looked both ways, and crossed the street. He'd have to be quick about it, but if he ran, he could get to school on time for the first bell. If he _really_ hurried, he could get to school and hide out in the back of his first period class before anybody else arrived.

If his parents thought he was crazy enough to go on that bus, feeling like Paul Bunyan at a midget convention, then they were so very wrong.

Furthermore, if they thought he was crazy enough to go to school today, well-he guessed they were right, then. He couldn't hide forever, and everyone was going to have to find out sooner or later. But maybe he could just. . . somehow prolong it. Just a little bit. Make it a slow transition somehow. Maybe if they saw his size before his face, it wouldn't be as disturbing. . .

Oh god, did he hope.

X

"So, how was the concert?" asked Shannon, sipping from a can of soda she bought from the vending machine in the commons area.

Socks's eyes were glazed over, puffy and red, with bags hanging low under them. He sat backwards at the round table, and he let out a long, loud yawn. "Great, actually. . . Tired as hell, though." He looked at Mitch soberly, then back at the floor. "We had to wake up at 2 in the morning to get back home in time."

"Rough. Where's Birthday Boy, anyway?" Shannon smirked. "Sleeping it off in the car?"

After a small silence, Shannon raised an eyebrow and looked at Mitch, whose tired eyes she couldn't see under his bangs. "Robot backed out at the last second," he finally said after clearing his throat quietly.

Shannon cocked her head to the side, curiously. "For real? But wait, wasn't he the main reason you went to begin with? I mean, that was supposed to be _his_ party."

Mitch shrugged, then looked back at Socks for further explanation. But Socks had no more to offer than what he'd told them in the car on the way to the concert. "He was acting really, really weird yesterday, saying he was still 'recovering'-whatever that means. And we got into a fight before I left. Doubt he'll show up today. . . I haven't seen him since yesterday-actually, I didn't even _get_ to see him yesterday."

"What do you mean-?" Shannon started, then shook her head. "Ugh. I'll ask later. I gotta try to finish this stupid geometry homework before class starts."

"See ya," Socks mumbled, watching her adjust her backpack and hurry off behind a bend in the hallway in the distance.

"Weird," Mitch said.

"What's weird?" asked Socks, turning around with a raised eyebrow.

"Since when did _she_ give a shit about math?"

Socks rolled his eyes. Shannon was his childhood friend, and while they weren't as tight now, he didn't like to hear someone make a snarky comment about her. Besides, he wasn't exactly bummed that someone else was concerned about Robot right now. "Come on, seeing that soda made me thirsty. I'm gonna get some before class."

He stood up to leave, and gestured for Mitch to follow him, but Mitch just snorted, and pointed to Cubey. The once-shortest boy in the group was passed out on the table, skin stuck to a particularly sticky part of the surface, with a tiny buildup of saliva trickling down from his mouth to the bottom of his flattened cheek.

Socks let out a long, dramatic sigh, as he took the liberty of reaching across the table and shaking Cubey's shoulder until the boy plucked his face upwards with a surprised grunt.

"No-No, Dad, I-I was jus' scratching, I-" He paused and looked up at his friends with increasingly widening eyes. "Oh. . . Wild night last night, eh?"

X

Just outside of the high school, sandwiched between a tree and a full bush that wrapped around it, Robot peeked his head up as high as he dared-about a foot-and looked just off the side of the tree trunk.

Following the departure of one bus, another one had just pulled up to one of the school's back entrances, and another load of kids disembarked. He'd hoped they would stampede inside like they would sometimes do in middle school, especially when the bus dropped them off during bad weather. But following the storms over the weekend, the sky was blue and the sun was shining. Subsequently, the students just meandered, some lingering outside as they carried on their conversations with their busmates, and even met up with other kids waiting outside. Just his luck. It was agonizing-he just wanted them to _leave._

Robot was hoping if he just waited long enough, he could slip through one of the back doors, unnoticed, between batches of bus drop-offs. But how was he supposed to sneak by if they wouldn't give him a clearing?

He ducked back behind the bush, re-evaluating his options. If the back load doors weren't going to provide a covert way in, he would have to find another. He tried to remember the layout of the building and any other doors the staff would use to get in. And then he remembered-to the left of the main entrance was a single, windowless door. It was only used for emergencies, but at this time in the morning, as staff and students were still arriving, there was a small chance that it was unlocked.

Robot slowly stood up and, leaning forward to keep his head out of sight, hurried along the back of the bush and around the street, ducking behind as many objects as he could along the way.

When he was across from the main entrance, he had to be quick. With a blink, he turned off the lights of his eyes and kept his head down the whole way through the parking lot, walking at a brisk pace and doing his best to avoid getting within ten feet of any of the rowdy seniors bolting out of their cars. Despite his best effort, he skidded to a halt, narrowly avoiding one boy rushing up to hop on the back of another boy, walking just ahead of him. In his annoyance, Robot couldn't help but think about a nature documentary he had to sit through in biology, displaying the process of two frogs in mating position. However, even though he now stood either at or above the height of these seniors, Robot would never dare to publicly compare them to the copulating amphibians, under the fear of somehow getting pounded.

Once he crossed the lot and was on the sidewalk, he hugged his shoulder to the wall, rounding the side of the building away from the main entrance, ignoring the burning curiosity about everyone and anyone that might have been looking in his direction. Even with his lights off, he couldn't risk making eye contact.

The security entrance was just around an L-shaped corner, and up a small flight of steps with a railing. Robot embraced the shadow that fell over him as he dashed up the tiny staircase, and his sleeved hand flew up to the metal handle of the door. He paused, as if holding a breath he didn't have, and slowly pushed his weight down on the handle.

It gave way.

Robot almost couldn't believe it. He pulled the downwards-facing handle, and the door opened, without so much as an ounce of resistance. Before him was a small rectangular room, pitch black, which he entered, and pulled the door shut behind him as quietly as possible. At the end of the narrow passage was an open set of doors, and the warmly lit choir room. To the left of the choir room door was an entrance to the backstage of the school auditorium.

Robot was so confident of his privacy, being out of the bright sunlight of the outside, that he went into and crossed the choir room without realizing until he was halfway through the two teachers standing a few feet before the door to the commons area. His feet slammed on the wooden floor, thundering in a way they wouldn't if it wasn't for the acoustic design of the room.

The adults, who were midway through what sounded like a serious chat, turned and gaped at the hooded figure simultaneously. Robot felt himself get woozy at just the thought of trying to explain himself.

The porky, middle-aged man that Robot vaguely recognized as the theater teacher took the initiative of addressing him first. "Excuse me, can we. . . help you?"

Even if using his own voice _didn't_ sicken him, Robot was at a loss for words. Not knowing what else to do, he shook his head, and calmly walked around the pair of adults. He kept his head down, avoided their gaze, and tried not to think about how freaked out he was to be taller than the both of them, letting the door to the choir room shut behind him.

Struck silent by what had just happened, it took the teachers a moment to process their thoughts. The woman bit her lip and looked at the theater teacher nervously. "New janitor?"

"Can't be," replied the man. "I think he's a student."

The woman nodded, remembering the backpack and realizing it was a dumb question.

X

"I swear, I meant my nose!"

"Riiiight," Mitch sarcastically droned to Cubey, smirking. He tiredly swung his head over at Socks, who was watching the entrance to the hallway thoughtfully. "I bet I know who _you're_ waiting for."

Socks grinned bashfully, seeing no reason to keep it private. "Stacey was gonna chat before first, but it's okay. I'll give her a call later."

Cubey gawked. "You swapped numbers? Oh, dude. . ."

"Why are you guys being so weird about it?" asked Socks, starting to go red in the face. "It's not like we're going steady."

"But it's not like you don't want to," Mitch pointed out, raising a finger.

"I do, but. . ."

"Come on, Socks. It's okay to have a girlfriend," Cubey told him with a smile, then started to frown and muttered: "God knows I wish I did."

"It's not _that,"_ Socks said, tapping the side of his soda can with his middle finger. "It's just. . . What if it doesn't work out?"

"Well, isn't it kind of hard to tell unless you try?" asked Mitch.

"What I mean is," Socks clarified, feeling himself blush even harder. Maybe it was the lack of sleep and the exhaustion of the early morning drive pushing these thoughts out in the open, but he found himself stringing together a sentence that he hadn't been able to articulate before. "I-I don't feel weird about going out on one date because it doesn't mean anything. But after Becca, and. . . the _other_ thing, now I don't know if I wanna be with someone like that."

"Oh. . ." Mitch mumbled, exchanging knowing looks with Cubey. The Mortons' divorce was still pretty fresh, and there was no doubt it wasn't on Socks's mind. Maybe the idea of relationship commitment was too much for him to emotionally bear right now. "But, what about Stacey? I mean, she's crazy about you."

"Yeah," Socks sighed. "And I'm starting to wonder why." He ran his fingers through his curly hair, and started massaging his temple from the lack of sleep. He couldn't be good boyfriend material if he couldn't be a boyfriend to begin with.

"Well. . . on a better note," Cubey said, "no bang-bang, no ba-ba."

Mitch's head turned so fast his bangs flew out of his face for a moment. _"What?"_

"Come on! You know!" Cubey whined, trying to defend the joke. "Socks, you don't have to worry about certain things now."

"Yeah," Socks muttered, eyes feeling heavy. _"That_ makes me feel better."

He should have figured not to bring it up to the other guys. Of all of his friends, Socks could really only open up to Robot about some personal issues the most because he knew he would take it the most seriously, without feeling the need to make some sort of joke about it. Robot was like a little brother to him-even more so than his actual little brother. And even then, sometimes Robot had his own advice to offer Socks, in return for all that Socks had to offer him. Thinking about their fight only made him feel worse.

"Inside-hats off!"

The curly blond flinched as he, Mitch and Cubey's eardrums were met with a very grating, very old female voice. From the entryway to the hallway around one of the support beams came a short, thin woman with a bleach blond bob cut, and thick-rimmed, black square glasses.

"Oh, god, her again," Mitch muttered, his hands instinctively reaching up to touch his ears to make sure he wasn't wearing his headphones. Sure enough, they were in his backpack.

With nobody to scold in Socks's group, the old woman's lime green pencil skirt hardly moved as she took rapid, tiny steps on surprisingly nimble feet, right up to a group of five boys sitting around a circular table. "You-with the baseball hat-"

She pointed to a tan boy with brown eyes, who was visibly confused to be singled out, until he realized that he was, in fact, the only one at the table with headwear. He looked left and right before pointing to his chest. "Me?"

"Off, or it's mine. _Now!"_

Looking baffled as to what he did wrong, the tan boy slowly reached up and pulled the cap off of his skull, revealing a head of spiky black hair that was thankfully nothing to be ashamed of, before tucking it into his open backpack.

Without a thank you, the disapproving woman flew across the room in another direction like a fly trapped in a hot room, probably to find something else to pester more students about.

"Ms. Briggs needs to get a life," Cubey said to the others. "You can't just go around yelling at kids all day. Nobody else at this school cares if you wear hats inside-rule book or not."

"Apparently, if you stand close enough when she's flying through the doorway," said Mitch, "you can hear her buzzing."

"Someone needs to hook Ms. _Buggs_ with a mate, maybe she'd chill out," chimed in a random senior with a scruffy beard passing by, pulling on his own baseball cap with her gone, purely out of defiance.

Hearing that made Cubey burst out laughing hysterically. "I'd feel sorry for _that_ guy. Right, Socks?"

Socks, who had been quietly listening, forced a grin, but it quickly disappeared. His eyes were focused on the entryway leading to the choir room, half-consciously looking for the girl who made him feel so unsure. A particularly loud group of teens had just forced their way into the commons area, glued at the shoulder, creating a wall that forced stray freshmen and sophomores up against the sides of the room like a giant broom. The sheer crampedness of the area signaled the approach of the first bell soon.

Among the familiar faces in the crowd was one, however, that was not so familiar-probably because it wasn't visible. Though several of the boys in this group were wearing caps and even one with a beanie, all of their faces were visible. Only one of the figures, farthest in the back, had his hoodie pulled up over his head, which was tilted in such a way so that the hole in the front of the hood was cast under a deep shadow.

It seemed as though the group would pass right through the commons area into the hallway, but today, they circled around an empty table near Socks's far right, and took seats. Why they were bothering to sit when the bell was about to go off soon was anybody's guess-even Socks thought it was strange for these popular bitches, maybe they were on a hot topic of discussion right now-but the impact of this decision was quite clear on the one darkly-dressed straggler.

The hooded boy broke away from the crowd, his pace slowing as he must have realized too late that the group was taking a seat, and he met the agonizing awkwardness of standing there, alone and exposed, right in the middle of the room of mostly-sitting students. He curled forward for a second, as if cursing out loud, but no words were heard.

And while Socks had noticed him early on, it didn't take long for nearly everyone in the room to notice him, either.

_"Who's that creep?"_ asked one of the girls with a long brown ponytail, sitting at the table to another.

_"I don't know,"_ the other, a brown-skinned girl with blue nailpolish on her drumming fingers replied, looking progressively mortified as her imagination ran wild. _"How long was he following us?"_

Without the shield of human bodies, the olive-green-hoodie-clad loner appeared to have made the decision of moving forward towards the entryway of the main hallway, even as the conversations around him quickly died off.

"Who wears clothes like _that_ on a day like _this?"_ Socks quietly asked to no one in particular. Knitting his eyebrows, he looked over at Cubey, who then looked at Mitch, and frowned in doubt, unsure of how to comment on this observation for once.

Even if they couldn't see his eyes, the hooded figure seemed to definitely be aware of theirs. It was as if the eyes of the students each had their own magnetic pull, and the more that looked up to watch him, the slower his movements got. It was a wonder he didn't bolt for it. However, his body language reeked of a plea for the kids to look away and let him pass through without making an event out of it. Were it not for his eeriness, Socks would've almost felt compelled to protect the guy from their collective overwhelming gaze.

"What do you think you're doing! Stop there, this instant!"

"Oh, great," Socks muttered as Mitch and Cubey turned and watched the green-dressed menace of the high school reappear in the doorway, and promptly trot up to the now-stone-still figure in a hood. The figure's head was still pointed downwards, but now his body was locked in a rigid, unnatural pose, like a high-stakes burglar two inches from setting off a motion-detected security alarm. All at once, any and all stray conversation, concerning the mysterious figure or not, came to a stop, and Ms. Briggs's abrasive squawk took hold of the room. "You know school policy-Take that hoodie off right now!"

Even without seeing his face, few others, including Socks, could feel the figure's trepidation about that command. If he was looking to avoid attention, he had gotten exactly the opposite of what he wanted, as now every kid waiting for the first period bell was staring at him, waiting to see how he'd react.

The nagging librarian took a few uncautious steps forward before slowing and pausing, likely considering the possibility that this figure in a heavily worn, unmarked hoodie and baggy pants could be a stranger, or might have even been armed. But upon noticing the brand new, spotless backpack loaded with the weight of what were most definitely not weapons, but either bricks or standard highschool textbooks, she seemed to convince herself that it was, in fact, a student, and took another step forward. The very thought of having made her intimidated only seemed to push her beyond her usual limits. "Didn't you hear me? Take off the hood or I will take it off for you!"

Seeing that he wasn't budging, she finally reached up, and at the very last second, the figure moved-but not in time. By the time he started to take a brisk step forward, she'd dug the cloth of his hood into her bony, long-nailed hands, and yanked.

Silence. Not a single word, not even a gasp. It was as though no one could process what they'd seen, like it wasn't real, and couldn't possibly be.

Out of the unfamiliar hoodie, on the unfamiliar body, at an unfamiliar height, came the very familiar face of the high school's one and only automated student. Even with the lights behind them shut off, there was no mistaking the size and shape of his eyes, or, for that matter, the absolute fear they were stricken with. But, just as soon as it happened, it was over, and he immediately pulled the hood back up and made a mad run for the main hallway directly ahead of him. Even after he disappeared from sight, students in the commons area could hear his heavy footsteps, charging through the now dense, narrow portion of the building, setting off startled shouts and screams of teens he brushed past and nearly knocked over along the way. In the distance, a metallic door squeaked open, meaning that he had escaped the building.

Mitch stood there, his long bangs pulled away from his face as he stared at the spot on the floor where the figure had been unhooded. "Dude. . . am I high, or was that. . . ?"

"That-that was Robot!" Cubey shouted frantically, finishing Mitch's sentence for him.

"There's no way," Socks said under his breath. "That-that can't-he's home recovering from some upgra-"

And then it hit him, right in the gut, like a giant, half-ton sack of bricks, and he couldn't have felt any stupider in his entire life for not putting two and two together sooner. "Oh my god," he breathed, dropping his now-empty soda can on the floor with a clink. "That. . . _was_ the upgrade."

* * *

Part 3 of the Multi-Chapter Collab with Wit!

**After his bedroom breakdown over the shock of the upgrade, Robot must deal with the thought of interacting with his friends and peers with this new body, and avoiding being seen as long as possible leads him to extreme measures.**

More feelz for this chapter, although it does get more lighthearted from here on out. Now that we're away from the factory, this and the next few chapters should come off more appealing to anybody looking for some more traditional RJ vibes, between the boys' dialog and the teachers and the school setting. We also get to introduce Shannon and June into this mess Robot's gotta deal with. Poor child.

Anyone who read "The Mystery of Andy Fields" fanfic might recognize Socks' referring to a girlfriend, who in that story was Clara Doppler. In the Project Jones continuity, she goes by Becca (just a better name for her). This story is taking place in high school, long after her and Socks break up. The continuity of PJ also involves some more changes to what happened in canon episodes like Gender, in which case Robot hung out with Shannon as well as Pam and Stacey, and getting to know Shannon was part of the motivation for doing so.

Comments/Critique/Any feedback would be awesome sauce.

_Whatever Happened to Robot Jones? _© Greg Miller & Cartoon Network


	4. Under the Bleachers

"Think it's too late to start looking at clown colleges?"

Shannon buried her head in her forearms, flat on the desk, her hair fanning out around her. Seated next to her, a shorter girl with straight black hair held back with a headband was looking over Shannon's homework, completed just a minute earlier-or, at least, as complete as it was going to get. The C-Average brunette didn't even know how to start half of the problems. The other half that she thought she knew turned out to be littered with mistakes, to the point that it made her more academically successful friend's face tense more and more with growing concern. "It's not _that_ bad. . ."

"It's not worth _turning in,"_ Shannon moaned, shaking her head with her forehead still touching her arms, her voice muffled. "I don't even know why I bother."

"Everybody has their weaknesses in one subject or another," the other girl responded thoughtfully, putting Shannon's heavily eraser-marked paper face-down on the table. The backside of the homework had one of Shannon's detailed doodles on it, which her friend gazed at, momentarily mesmerized. "I know I couldn't draw the way you do, even if I really tried."

Hearing this made Shannon raise her head a little, her green eyes wrinkled with exhaustion. "Oh, June," she groaned, "is that really all I'm good at? What am I gonna do with a bunch of stupid drawings?"

"I don't know. . ." the half-Korean girl sighed, her gentle accent surfacing. "Open a _stupid_ art museum?" she asked with a shrug. "But it's not a bad thing. Plenty of people made good money off of being able to draw."

"If you get _discovered,"_ Shannon corrected her. "And plenty of other people know how to draw. I'm halfway through high school and I'm barely passing. I'm not in any clubs and I don't volunteer for anything. I'm tired of trying to push myself to do stuff I don't wanna do, but how am I supposed to get into a college if I'm not good at anything but drawing on the back of my homework?"

June's index finger traced one of the heavily-marked parts of the drawing, feeling the pen marks as she thought. "So. . . why not join the art club?"

Shannon rested her head on her hand and looked away from her. "Because it's full of phonies," she said, lowering her voice. "It's not for me."

Seeing that she didn't want to talk about it, June clammed up, and eyed the clock as the bell rang, noting with slight annoyance that their geometry teacher was late again. "Well, it wouldn't hurt to start working on your juggling, then."

In the middle of June's statement, the door had opened, and the class instinctively quieted down for the arrival of the teacher. But the loud 'BAM' that followed brought everyone's attention to the back left of the room. Who they beheld was not the teacher after all, but a very frightened, very jumpy Charles Cubinacle.

"What the hell, Cubey?" asked Shannon, suddenly wide awake. "Way to make an entran-"

"SH-SHANNONOH-OHMYGOD YOU GOTTA DEH-DHE S-S-SHEE SEE-" the slightly heavyset boy stammered. With no teacher there to stop him, he shook and paced back and forth in front of Shannon's desk, trying to string together a coherent sentence. "BIGHOODIEPANTS! CAME IN TH-THROUGH COMMONS! S-SCARED EVERYBODY!" Suddenly, he paused, sweat collecting on his brow under his bangs and panting, and shifted his head slightly towards Shannon's friend. "Oh, hi June. Long time no chat."

June stared at him, puzzled, before responding. "Oh. . . Hi Cubey-"

"SHANNON!" Cubey interrupted with a shout, getting on his hands and knees before the baffled brunette and pulling at his hair. "HE'S HERE, HE'S DIFFERENT, YOU GOTTA-"

_"Shut_ up!" shouted a kid near the back, causing a small wave of laughter to break over the class.

Not a stranger to crises, Shannon stood up from her desk and grabbed Cubey by the shoulders. _"Who's_ different? What are you talking about?"

"Ro-Ro-_Robot!"_ the boy finally spat out, looking pained. "He's a _monster!_ He transformed into-into-I don't know! But he ran through the hallway and freaked out everybody! Even fuggin' Ms. Briggs!"

Shannon gaped at him. "Wh-wha-what are you talking about? Robot's here?"

"Didn't you understand me? He ran outside, he ran away! And he and Socks had a fight and he didn't come to the concert, and nobody got any sleep last night, and I-I-I sw-swear to god, I was just scratching my nose, dammit, LEAVE ME ALONE!" Cubey held his head as he ran for the door.

"Wait!" Shannon started after him, "What do you mean he's 'different'? Cubey! CUBEY! WHERE ARE YOU GOING?"

"WHEN I GET EXCITED I GOTTA PISS!" he shouted behind him with a crack in his voice, running back along the desk, hugging the wall and narrowly avoiding a collision with the greasy-haired, red-faced, blue shirt-wearing geometry teacher as he stampeded out of the room. The overweight teacher scoffed as he was forced to hold in his belly until the inane student had disappeared. He turned his disapproving gaze on the rest of the class like they were all collectively responsible for the outburst, before muttering: "This is what we get when they put the nuts in the school with the rest of 'em. . ."

The teacher brought himself to the front of the class and set his teaching supplies down on the desk. But before he even had a chance to further break the upholstery of his seat with his rear end, Shannon raised her hand in the air, making him look up. "Ms. Merner-I MEAN-Mr. Misner-can I be excused for just a minute?"

The teacher rolled his eyes, not even bothering to ask if her motivation and the screaming kid running out of his class were related. "Just go," he muttered, pointing to the open door in the back. Shannon gave June a nod before hurrying out. The black-haired girl noted her picking up her one textbook, and leaving her unfinished homework as she left, and realized that there wasn't much motivation for Shannon to come back to this class at all this period.

X

As the rest of the morning carried on normally, Shannon wandered back through the halls, knowing she had to start somewhere. She first checked back into the now empty commons area-the place where Robot had apparently caused a disturbance, and turned the excitable Cubey into a stammering idiot. As far as what about him caused this, Shannon had no clue. And the lack of detail made her nervous. All she could gage from Cubey's high-speed ramble was that Robot had showed up to school looking different, and he was not happy to have been seen.

Shannon roamed back out of the commons area into the hallway, knowing full well that he definitely wasn't in there, and then found herself stopping at the window, noticing a group of freshman boys in first period PE doing stretches on the football field. An overwhelming sensation in her gut told her to look outside, and Shannon rounded the corner, finding an unlocked door that lead out onto the grassy campus field.

Careful not to be seen, just to avoid answering any questions pertaining to where she should be, Shannon slipped around the side of the building, staying cast in its shadow, occasionally scanning the faces of the boys on the field, looking for a particular set of large, yellow, luminescent eyes that could be mistaken for no other. But among the short, sticky, pimpled lot, there was none.

She paused as she rounded the corner, leaning against the brick surface and sighing. Was it so hard to believe that Robot had just gone home? She wished she'd had just a little more information about what had happened. She always missed these important events.

Shannon gave herself a moment to enjoy the warm spring air as she gazed out at the vast field of the campus. To her left had been the football field, whereas on her right was the track, where the freshman girls PE class were doing laps. Shannon remembered having first period PE last year, and she loathed it-Taking a shower to go to school, just to get all sticky and sweaty and take another shower, all before second period. This year, luck seemed to have shifted her way, getting eighth hour PE, so she could save the shower until she got home, and flop down on the couch immediately after.

As per usual, a tall, thin group of girls with bobbing ponytails who were likely conditioning for sports headed the front of the group, while one overweight girl, and another, with a pair of thick glasses and stubby legs, made up the back, conversing with each other and calmly walking the length of the track instead. Not much for sports herself these days, Shannon related to them, and felt almost justified by their confidence.

She almost could have smiled. But then, following the girls as they completed one lap at the start of the building, her head shifted slightly to the left, and her heart skipped a beat.

While both freshman PE classes were never the wiser, a figure was pacing back and forth, beneath the shadow of the bleachers, just barely cast in the dark. He was huge-at least six feet tall, and dressed in dark, baggy clothes from top to bottom. Definitely not a coach-his head was covered by his hood. Any of the coaches Shannon knew who wore school-brand hoodies never put them up, some just wearing caps (luckily for them, the staff was immune to Ms. Briggs's nagging). Not a single one of them wore their hoods up, not even in winter months.

Besides, not a single PE teacher at this school was that tall.

There was sweat collecting at the back of Shannon's neck. The backpack-wearing figure would stop between the span of that first column of bleachers away from Shannon, pause for a second, then turn back around and pace the other direction, towards her. Shannon watched him do this five times, her anxiety building with every increasing pause. And every time the opening of his hoodie seemed to face the direction of the freshman girls, her hands clenched.

Figuring whatever he was up to couldn't be good, Shannon decided she had to do something. She looked left and right, and her eyes fell upon an aluminum baseball bat, laying against the wall just ten feet to her right, not too far away from one of the equipment sheds. Must've been left out by a careless student who was assigned to put it away. She picked it up, at first surprised by how heavy it was. But the weight also gave her a sense of assurance, and she gripped it firmly as she walked back along the wall to the left, and back around the corner, staying in the shadow of the building the whole time. This time, when she reached the door where she had originally come out of, she kept heading to the left, to the far side of the football field, and crossed the grass out of eyeshot, disappearing beneath the bleachers herself.

Lined shadows fell over her and the grass like horizontal prison bars, and her adrenaline kicked in. The figure had the other open side of the bleachers essentially walled off. The tall side of the structure was enclosed by the fence that wrapped around the school property, and there wasn't enough room between the gaps in the bleachers for even Shannon to worm through. If things were about to get dangerous, she didn't have any way out. She was suddenly immensely grateful to have found that bat.

The grass cushioned and silenced any sound her feet made as she moved closer, inch by inch. Her back and pits were visibly drenched by the time she was halfway there, and the figure, who'd just completed another circle between the last column of bleachers ahead, paused for an unusually long amount of time, before abruptly bending forward, his arms hitting the ground, and finally leaning back, and resting his bottom on the grass.

Breaking his repetitive cycle was so jarring, it made Shannon freeze mid-step. Here she was, expecting to meet the figure, eye to eye in the next few seconds, her heartbeat in her ears. And now he was denying her that, the asshole. She almost could've slapped him just for that. She could have-

_Snap._

A twig had just split under Shannon's foot, breaking the bubble of silence that had fallen over the bleachers since the figure had stopped his pacing. Her heart jumped to her chest as the man in the hoodie turned his head in a clean, swift, buzzing motion to look up at her.

Shannon didn't even take a second to process it. She raised the bat like she was back in little league, about to knock the ball out of the park, and swung. Before he could react, the end of the metal bat collided with the right side of his head with a clank, and he sprawled out on the grass, right next to the fence.

Instantly, the blood drained from her hearing, and Shannon's gut did a backflip as she recognized the sound the bat had made when it touched the side of the figure's head. Metal on metal. "No. . ." she whispered, dropping the bat on the ground, without so much as a thud when it hit the earth.

The figure, who, had he been human, would have been knocked out by the blow or worse, got up within seconds of his fall, and fixed his angry eyes, now glowing brightly again, on the petrified teenage girl. "What the hell, Shannon?!" yelled a deeper, but not totally unfamiliar voice.

_"Robot?!"_ the girl choked, gaping as the figure got to his knees, and then to his feet, and scowled down at her, his eyes popping beneath the dark of the hoodie. "You-! What?! _This?!"_ Without thinking, she grabbed his shoulder with her left hand, the fabric of the baggy sleeve folding between her fingers, and sure enough, found the form of a thick metal arm beneath that. Robot was perplexed into silence, watching her other arm fly to his chest and grab, feeling the flat metal surface beneath it as well. "What are you standing on?" Shannon asked, unable to take in what she was seeing.

He found himself too baffled to stop her or even speak up, until one more unwarranted pass sent him gasping-Her hand flying between the elastic of his pants, down and around his pelvic region. At last, he grabbed her arms, and shoved them off of himself. "Shannon, stop it! It's me! It's _me!"_ he cried out, anger and frustration coming out clearly in his voice.

His voice and eyes should've done it, but it was Robot's hand that made it finally sink in for Shannon. Having escaped the stretched-out sleeves of the worn-out hoodie, one of Robot's metallic claws, cool to the touch, clasped around her own sweaty hand, the pressure loosening as he saw her slowly calm down. And there they stood, staring into each other's eyes, stillness between them.

Gradually, Shannon lowered her arm, and brought Robot's arm down with it. When they were low enough, their hands broke apart, and fell back at their respective sides. Shannon's lips parted to speak three times before she finally found her voice. "What happened?"

Robot stared at her, unblinking. "What do you _think_ happened? I got upgraded."

"But I thought-" she started, and then furrowed her brow. She had always been under the assumption that Robot was always going to be the same height he was, his whole life, just like every other robot she heard of. She didn't think it was fair to him, but she wasn't a robot herself. Who was she to judge if it was fair or not? Maybe he was happier that way.

But _this?_ Maybe she didn't understand Robot's purpose well enough. "So, this is it?" She gestured outwardly, towards Robot. "This is the thing that sent Cubey running to my class, saying you're a monster?"

Robot looked nauseated. "'A monster'? He said I'm a _monster?"_

Shannon slapped her forehead. "No! I mean, I'm sure he didn't mean to come off that way. He's your friend. . . But Robot, how come you didn't _say_ anything?! How come you didn't tell us about this?"

Robot started to stammer. "Because I-I didn't know either! I just went to the factory for a checkup and they knocked me out and I woke up like this!"

"You're not serious," Shannon said, mouth open as she shook her head. "They can't just-fuck, you have rights!"

_"What_ rights?" Robot shouted as loud as he dared, before it caught the attention of the surrounding students. "I'm a robot! I don't _have_ rights!"

To this, Shannon had nothing to argue with. And she felt ashamed about it, too. It suddenly occurred to her that despite knowing _this_ robot like the back of her hand, that she knew little to nothing about robots in society, or the rules that they had to abide by. Maybe he was telling the truth. Afraid of him realizing she was that ignorant, she turned her eyes to the fence, and the nearest street not far away, where a stray car passed every minute or two.

"And apparently, I'm not even permitted to know about the changes that are going to happen to me, whether or not I can even argue against them." He sighed and looked down at the grass.

"Dammit, Darvick. . ." he whispered.

"Darvick?" Shannon dared to ask.

But Robot shook his head. "It's not important. I just don't know what I'm going to do. The thought of being seen by the kids again. . . even my friends think I'm a freak now."

"Did it ever occur to you," Shannon started, slowly, "that showing up to school in shady clothes and standing outside under the bleachers was gonna come off _kinda_ creepy?"

Robot blinked and shot a scowl. _"What?"_

Shannon groaned. "Robot, I think your problem wouldn't have been such a _problem_ in the first place if you would've just owned it," she told him, honestly. "There's nothing you can do about it, so you should've just tried to make the best of it. Instead of hiding out here, and making it look like you're some homeless guy perving on the freshman girls."

Robot narrowed his eyes. _"That's_ what you thought I was doing?"

"Why else would I hit you with a bat, you weirdo?!"

The automaton buried his face in his claws. "Oh, _man_. . ."

He slumped to the ground, with Shannon following him, putting a hand on his shoulder. "I didn't, um, hurt you, did I?"

Robot opened his eyes, but kept them narrow. _"Really?"_

"Come on! I just wanna make sure I didn't actually damage you or something!"

The automaton shook his head, and pulled down his hood. Sure enough, his head was entirely familiar to Shannon, down to the yellow hearing receptors on either side. One of which was only barely dented. "Nothing worse than when I got slammed against the lockers in sixth grade." He reached up, fixed the little dent in his dial, and twisted it, testing his hearing. "If you were trying to make me deaf, you should have hit me a lot harder-I can still hear everyone's screaming from all the way out here."

Shannon rolled her eyes, removing her hand from his shoulder and dropping it into her lap.

"Well, your sarcasm is working fine, Mr.-I'm-So-Scared-About-Being-Taller."

Robot dropped his arm and looked her in the eyes seriously. "You don't understand. I didn't get a chance to get used to this-I didn't even get a warning about it. It was all just a big, nasty surprise."

Shannon's heart skipped a beat again, as she suddenly remembered. _His birthday. . . His birthday! That's why this happened now!_

"And everybody expects me to just get used to it. But it's not fair! Nobody else in history has had to deal with a change like this! I'm the experiment, I'm the prototype!" He slapped his face again. "And I was finally starting to feel like I really belong here. It's-" his voice broke, and Shannon thought for a second that he was going to start crying. "It makes me feel like I have to start all over again."

"Why would you think that?" asked Shannon, in her softest voice. "You don't have to go through this alone. Not when you have us-You know, me, Socks, Mitch, and the boy who pees when he gets nervous."

Robot didn't even smile at that. He yanked his hood back over his head. "Yeah, until they see how different I am now."

Shannon reached her breaking point. She balled her hands up into fists and socked his shoulder, a lot more gently than when she'd hit him with the bat. "Hey! You really think you're the only one who's been through some sort of hellish change overnight?"

Robot gazed at her skeptically, until his eyes trailed down to her lap, where one real leg was crossed over a synthetic one. Immediately, he knew what she was referring to. He slowly looked back up to meet her eyes. "Well. . . no. . ."

"Just. . . trust me, they'll get over this. So will everyone else."

After a thoughtful pause, his voice dropped to a whisper. "But when will _I_ get over it?"

"Well. . ." Shannon trailed off. She definitely couldn't tell him _that._ She couldn't see into the future, and she couldn't make things happen for him. In reality, in the end, that was all up to him. "Whenever you're ready to, I guess."

Robot stared at the ground intensely. "I didn't even get to experience the change like all of you. . . I just skipped it."

Shannon nodded, thinking over her words carefully. "Look. . . As someone who knows what it's like to suddenly be different, just. . . believe me when I say this. . ." She thought a bit more for a moment. "For a while, you're going to wake up in the morning, and you're going to feel like your reflection is a stranger. And it'll stay like that for a while. But then. . . someday-I don't know when-you'll look in the mirror, and you're not going to expect to see _him,"_ she gestured, raising a hand above her head to the height Robot used to stand, "But. . . yourself," and gestured at the Robot sitting right beside her, the real one, in the wires and steel.

For a while, he continued to keep his eyes focused on the ground ahead of him, until it seemed like he'd focused his vision in on one specific blade of grass. His face was unreadable, and then, finally, a small smile broke out over it, and he turned his head just a little to meet Shannon's gaze. "Thanks."

And whether or not the advice actually helped, or if he was just happy that she cared, it still felt so good to help him, to have advice that he could actually use or at least think about. She never felt this useful before.

Maybe it was the lighting. Maybe it was the mysteriousness of his face under the hood, or the taller, broad-shouldered form under those clothes. Maybe it was even the deeper voice, but in that moment, Shannon's heart fluttered, and she couldn't resist.

She reached out and wrapped her arms around him, hands digging into the cloth of his upper back, cheek pressed against the side of his head.

Robot froze, so surprised by the motion and still sort of getting over being assaulted with a baseball bat just a few minutes ago, that he almost pushed himself away. He was going to, until it dawned on him that he was caught in a hug. A _hug._ Her fingers wrapped tightly around the metal beneath the cloth, lowering to the middle of his back, like she was validating that he was here, right then and there, and this was real. And Robot sat there, blinking.

Shannon was hugging him.

All his time with the humans proved useful, as before it became embarrassing, he remembered how to react, and pulled himself in closer to her, his hands around her back. Her frame was bony, but the flesh was soft in his embrace. He forgot what it felt like, to be this close to her. He was still hurting, and it was going to hurt for a long time, but in that moment, he felt almost numb to everything.

Time slowed, as the world around them started to fade. And to Robot's biggest surprise yet, his face heated up, and he started to remember what it felt like, just a little over a year ago, to so intensely like Shannon in more ways than one.

X

With Shannon having no particular desire to head back to math, both she and Robot wordlessly agreed to linger outside under the bleachers until they noticed the freshman PE classes head back inside, signaling the end of the period was near. With a five minute grace period for the kids to shower and change, Shannon and Robot, with his hood down, stood up from the grass and made the calm, slow stroll back across the football field, to the doors.

They arrived in the main hallway the minute the bell sounded. Were this the last period of the day, the doors to classrooms around them would fly open with students who'd been waiting by the doors, shoulder-to-wood, so eager to hurry out that they sent papers and pencils flying in the fray. But since it was only the start of second hour, and most students were still in the process of waking up, no such rush was imminent. In fact, it was a miracle no sleep deprived underclassman came stumbling out the door to fall flat on their face.

Still, before long, Robot and Shannon were surrounded by the usual mass of students, dragging themselves to their next class. The more bodies that entered the halls, the closer Shannon walked beside Robot, to the point where they nearly brushed up, skin to steel. They were moving as if they were a two-minded vessel, and the only thing that set them apart from the dozens of newly announced teenage couples that passed through the high school was their mission of getting from one end of the hall to the other, trying to _avoid_ being seen. It was so strange. She felt like she was supposed to be protecting him, this friend in his vulnerable state, but her shoulder was now at his elbow height. To anyone else, it would look as if _he_ should be protecting _her._ And this thought made Shannon's cheeks suddenly flood with warmth.

Either way, she didn't have to worry about Robot noticing, as he was becoming increasingly more tense with the more packed the halls were. His hands were twitching, and Shannon assumed he was probably resisting the urge to yank the hood back over his head with every bit of willpower in him. She was nearly tempted to take his hand in hers, but considering the extra-long looks they were getting from Robot's increased height, it was probably a bad idea.

And there _were_ looks. Chicks tipping their heads to the side, blond and brunette hair tumbling over shoulders. Boys with eyes widening, jocks elbowing each other to look at the pair as they walked by. A middle-aged teacher stepping out of her class to grab a lesson plan stopped mid-sip out of her coffee cup, so hypnotized by the sight that her mug started tipping forward, and she only noticed when she felt drops of the warm beverage spill on the tops of her brand new saddle shoes.

But the common thread between all of these people was that while they definitely saw a sight to stare at, not one of them had the words for it. Hyper-aware of the various conversations around him, Robot didn't hear a single student or staff member who noticed him mention anything. While the typical hallway racket carried on, those few who gazed in his direction seemed stunned into silence, or near to it.

By the time they reached the stairwell, the bodies had thinned out to a stray student trickling up and down, and Robot could breathe again (proverbially speaking). Shannon let out an audible exhale as she felt his rigid form release, his hands finding their way into his hoodie pocket, and cancelling any chance Shannon had at holding them now. In a way, she regretted not taking the chance when she had it.

"See? They barely noticed," Shannon told him in a soft voice, keeping close to him as they ascended the staircase. She forced a smile, but he wasn't looking her way.

"Should I celebrate the fact that they didn't run around in circles panicking?" Robot asked dully.

"Come on, it wouldn't have been _that_ bad," she told him. "Overall, I'd say the worst of it is over, actually."

"I still have another three years, one month, four days, five hours, forty-two minutes and thirty-nine seconds to go until I walk across the stage," the automaton said, factually. "Until then, it is premature to say the worst of it is over."

"Oh, Jesus Christ, Robot-In three years, nobody's even going to notice you _exist!"_ she shouted abruptly, slapping her palms to her temples. Patience wasn't Shannon's strong suit. "I'm _telling_ you, it's gonna be just like middle school!"

"Except that in middle school, I had all of my friends to help me get through it."

"And you still _will,_ dude."

The familiar masculine human voice sent Robot and Shannon stopping short, just on the break between the first flight of stairs and the second. They turned and looked at each other, before slowly turning their eyes on the three boys, standing at the bottom of the staircase.

Socks, Mitch, and Cubey gaped upwards at the tall boy in the baggy clothes, focusing on the part of him they recognized the most-his face. Looking tight and somewhat embarrassed to have been caught with what he said, Robot's mouth opened, but he stayed silent. Though he looked at each of them in the eyes, his gaze stayed the longest on the tallest boy of the three with the blond curls, the owner of the voice who spoke up behind him.

Similarly, there was an uneasy pause before Mitch cut the tension. "Holy shit, man."

"Robot. . . is that you?" Cubey said, brushing a hand up against his growing sideburns, where he used to lift his shutter shades by the handle to better see something.

Robot narrowed his eyes. "What. . . ?" he said quietly.

_"No,_ it's John Travolta," Shannon said to Cubey, irritatedly. "Who else would it be?"

Thoughtfully, Robot stepped back down the stairs, one at a time, keeping his gaze downward until his feet touched the floor. Though he appeared imposing looking up at him on the stairs, it was hard for the boys grasp their friend's actual height until he was on the same level as they were. For the first time in his life, Robot was standing above all of his friends, even Socks. He approached them, hands still in his hoodie pocket, with timid steps, the air around them sharp as knives, until only two feet stood between himself and his best friend.

"You're tall," Mitch said, dropping the serious expression he had and starting to smile.

Robot nodded shyly Mitch's way, before cautiously turning to the boy he fought with yesterday. "Socks, I-"

"Don't," Socks cut in, shaking his head. "It's okay. I get it now. I mean-shit, no, I don't get it, obviously-"

"Well it's not your fault! And I shouldn't have taken it out on you. I'm sorry."

"Why are _you_ sorry? If I had any idea-"

"But you didn't! And it's my fault!" Robot slapped his hands to his side, looking exhausted. "I don't know why I was afraid. I just didn't know how you-all of you-were going to react. It's one thing if the other kids react badly to this-I don't really care about that, at least not as much as I care about you guys."

"Why would _we_ care, though?" Socks asked. "Yeah, it's. . . _something._ But it's not like you're a different person."

There wasn't much movement in the group, so it became very obvious when Mitch elbowed Cubey when this was said.

_"Ow,"_ Cubey muttered, glaring at his long-haired friend.

"I might as well be, though," Robot sighed. "I don't know how I'm going to live this down. It's such a huge change all at once, and-just-Socks, _look at me!"_ He gestured to himself. _"Listen_ to me! In one night, I went from a boy to a-a _man._ But I don't _feel_ like one."

"Well," Socks said, scratching his freshly shaved chin and looking away for a second, "I don't really feel like I'm that much more of a man than I was back in sixth grade, either."

Robot's eyes lit up. "Really?" he asked, quietly.

"Yeah, dude. Besides, I mean, what's an adult, anyway? Just a big ass kid."

Cubey snickered. "Yeah, I still build stuff with my Legos every once in a while."

"And sometimes I make racecar noises when I drive to school," Mitch added with a grin.

"Honestly," Socks smiled, "I'm kinda glad this happened. I mean, _hey,_ you're taller than Cubey again."

"Oh, that's right-hey!" Cubey said, stomping his foot. "That's not fair!"

"He's taller than all of us, man," Mitch told him, plainly.

"Oh yeah," Cubey mumbled, calming down.

Robot's lip quivered, and he looked each of his friends in the eyes again-this time, briefly turning around to look at Shannon too, before turning back to Socks. "I. . . don't know what to say. You're not lying, but what you said. . . it _does_ help."

Socks beamed, and then thrust his right hand out and in front of Robot. The automaton gazed at his hand momentarily before extending his own, and both boys shook hands. But before Robot realized what was happening, Socks pulled him close enough to bring him in a hug. The human took this moment to adjust to the new size of his best friend, while Robot slowly relaxed again, and welcomed the familiar feel of a hug from one of the few humans he trusted so dearly, his pupils gleaming.

When they broke apart a few seconds later, Socks kept a hand on Robot's upper back, grinning slyly. "And hey, so you're bigger now, but-"

Suddenly, he jerked forward and wrapped his arm around the back of Robot's neck, pulling him down. So surprised by the motion, Robot didn't regain his rigidity, and became a limp ragdoll in the crook of the human's arm. _"Hey!"_

Cubey and Mitch laughed out loud as Socks rubbed his right hand's knuckles against the cool surface of Robot's bulb, leaving Shannon smirking and shaking her head in the back.

"-You'll never stop being my little bro," he told the automaton, before letting him go for real this time.

Robot stood tall once more and was holding in a laugh. "I'm sorry I doubted you."

"Well, I can see I'm no longer needed," Shannon said sarcastically, bounding down the steps and joining the boys on the floor. "Check back in at lunch?" she asked Robot.

Robot nodded, watching Shannon leave to head to her own class on the first floor, before he started back up the stairs, this time accompanied by his male friends. Even as she put distance between them, the girl could hear the echoes of their conversation as the boys told Robot about what he missed at the concert, but it wasn't long before the stairwell echo distorted the words enough to where she couldn't make sense of it anymore.

Alone again, Shannon found herself folding her arms as she walked down the now lonely hallway, the bell having rung a while ago. Years ago, she would've been glad to have Robot off her hands. But right now, she felt cheated. _She_ had been the one to find Robot at the brink of a meltdown. _She_ was the one to encourage him to come back inside, to face the other students. _She_ was the one who accompanied him on that first agonizing walk through the hallways, as the kids got their first glimpse at him unhooded. And yet here she was, all by herself, while the boys swept Robot under their collective wing, like a baby bird carried off by his three brothers.

There had been a time when Shannon had been embarrassed to have even been seen with the socially awkward robot kid, even before she found out that he liked her as more than a friend. Back when her prosthetic made her a seventh grade eyesore, and the one thing she wanted most in the entire world was to blend in with the wall. But things weren't the same anymore. Robot and Shannon knew about each other far more than they did when they were just hallway acquaintances. He knew about her mistakes in the past, and he somehow _still_ liked her. Even respected her. And Robot _had_ to know that she was his friend. So it wasn't fair that she still felt like an outsider to the group. She wished she'd chimed in when they were listing off the childish things they still did-but it was _their_ moment, anyway. Who was she to try and break in on it?

Robot had done so much to save Shannon from herself. For once, she just wanted Robot to recognize when she came to _his_ rescue. To value her the way he valued the boys. To feel important to him.

Suddenly, she came to a halt, her sneakers squeaking on the waxed, speckled floor. The war wasn't over yet.

* * *

Part 4 of the Multi-Chapter Collab with Wit!

**When Robot's plan to get through his first day of school after the upgrade unnoticed results in a huge scene, Shannon takes the liberty of trying to find out what happened, and carry out some damage control. But will she get any credit for it once his friends get involved?**

Comments/Critique/Any feedback would be awesome sauce.

_Whatever Happened to Robot Jones? _© Greg Miller & Cartoon Network


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